Tuesday, February 14, 2012

... {T}he proper reward for an animated movie that is judged one of the year’s best films but not the best should be exactly the same as for any other movie — a Best Picture nomination. A separate award feels redundant in a great year — and worse than that in an off year. ...

I understand where Mr. Harris is coming from, and I appreciate his sentiments. But the real-world point he misses is, if animated features don't have their own category -- no matter how good they are -- they will never win the The Little Gold Man for "Best Picture."

The Academy as a whole, dominated by live-action filmmakers, would never elect a "mere cartoon" to the Big Prize. Ever.

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comments:

Okay, this isn't going to make me popular, but the fact is if you are making an animated feature the odds are way better to be nominated for an Academy Award than if your film is live action.

Lets look at the numbers. There were 18 animated features eligible for an Academy Award this year and so 5 films were nominated. That means that every animated movie has a 1 in 3.6 chance of scoring a nomination. To contrast that, there were 265 live action films vying for 9 nominations, meaning the live action movies have a 1 in 29.44 chance of scoring a Best Picture nomination.

I think it is time the Academy reviewed just how animated movies get their nominations and think about a way of limiting the number of nominees (the way Best Song only had 2 nominees this year) because 5 nominees for such a small amount of qualifying films seems ridiculous.

There should ALWAYS be an Academy Award for animated feature, it is just that with so many nominees in such a small field, true excellence and originality ends up mixed in with the ordinary.

All those arguments about the number of animated films against the live action films for nominations is completely flawed. 265 for 9 live-action and 18 to 5 in animation, so what? All other oscar nominations categories have even wider odds. Take the supporting actor category, how many supporting actors are in each of those live action films? and for the same number of nominations. The oscar for animation category exist not because of the quantity of animated films released. It's simply to show how many were above the quality within the animated films released this particular year.If your argument is against the quality of animated films versus the amount of nomination, then you could say same about the live-action category.

I agree with Steve's proclamation. Man landed on the Moon because people tried to make it happen. The WGA, DGA, and SAG have made it their mission to exclude animation from the top prize since Beauty and The Beast got the nom, which is why we have the category.

The thoughts and observations of the leaders of The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 IATSE. Jason MacLeod is the Business Representative, Laura Hohman is the President. Mike Sauer is Assistant to the Business Representative.

This weblog reflects their individual personal opinions and does not necessarily represent the official position of the Animation Guild.

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